


You Could Be

by medea1313



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Canon, Episode Related, Gap Filler, Points of View, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-23
Updated: 2005-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-27 09:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12078123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medea1313/pseuds/medea1313
Summary: Gap-filler in 511 - how does Justin handle Brian's sudden change of heart?





	You Could Be

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).
> 
> Note from author: I wrote this a long time ago under a different name, but happy to have it here! Thanks to IrishCaelan for importing!

When you wake up in the morning you think, he loves me. He said so. Light creeps across your eyelids. You’re very conscious of the fact that this morning is different from other mornings. You are no longer on the precipice; he has pulled you in. You are valued, you are loved.

Whole seconds pass before you remember anything else. The warm glow of sun on your lips, an echo of his kisses, fades as your fingers trace the bruise on your arm where you fell, or were thrown. You are lucky, you are alive. Last night he whispered three small words into your ear and you thought you might be dead, but you’re not, you’re more alive than you’ve ever been before. Your body is solid, his voice in your ear, and the brief reflection of your own face in his eyes. Others aren’t so lucky. Michael. You pass from joy to sorrow in a moment. You open your eyes.

Staring at the cracked and dirty ceiling of your apartment — yours, your sanctuary, your studio — you search out the warmth of your waking, the comfort, the happiness, and banish it. You dig the hope out of your flesh and hold it up to the light. It is translucent, and then simply absent, crumbling to dust. Brian is still Brian. He is afraid of dying, and Michael was hurt, and those things negate everything that came after. Nothing has changed. You fix your eyes on one long crack running from the window over your bed and tell yourself that you already knew he loved you, that was not the point. Is not the point. You have trouble remembering the point, why you are lying alone on a borrowed bed, in a dirty apartment, what you hope to gain. He loves you, but you remind yourself that it took a near death experience, though not his own, to make him say it. For him to act on it, to change, would take — you cannot even finish the sentence. He is Brian Kinney, he will never change. Words are air, weightless. You know better than to invest in them. You know better than to open yourself to the inevitable disappointment. You know him.

The worst part — the part that makes you place your hands on your face, run your fingers over your forehead and into your hair as if you can take the morning back, take the night back, disappear — is that you were doing okay. Are doing okay. Despite the shitty apartment. Despite missing him. You have been living on your own, and you have been okay with that. Hopeful that even though things did not work out the way you wanted, they will someday. With someone else. That optimism seems far away now, that quiet contentment. Your arms ache, the way they did the first morning you woke up alone, empty. Your throat is tight and raw. Before you could deny, you could tell yourself that Brian is so incapable of commitment that he can’t even tell you he loves you. Now you cannot tell yourself that. Now you have had hope. No matter how deep you reach to extract it, it burrows still, it finds the hidden cavities in your lungs and waits. You will have to be more vigilant, ruthless when it emerges. You will not be caught up in a fantasy. It’s time you grew up, and stopped believing that three little words can make everything okay.

You take your hands off your face and sit up. You should be at the hospital.

 

You have to stop yourself from touching his hair. He sweeps you up, being romantic and you want to touch him, fuck the paint, but you flinch away. He has come to your apartment to haunt you, you think. He makes you repeat it, acknowledge his words and you do, looking away. His eyes make it real and you need it not to be real. You need to think it doesn’t matter. Paint, create, think of your art and your hands steady and sure, do not think of how he held you through your nightmares, do not think of possibilities.

When he asks you to marry him, you laugh. Your mental walls withstand the strain. You catch his words in your throat before they have a chance to enter deeper into your body, and expel them with a quick incredulous breath. “I know you too well,” you tell him, though your hand trembles imperceptibly. You will not listen. You will not believe. Even the look in his eyes cannot make you, the startled, broken helpless look. You have seen that before, in the mirror, every time he pulled back, every time you discovered anew Who Brian Kinney Is. You think of the way he watched you go, and didn’t put out a hand to stop you. You smile, shake your head, “thank you for saying it, but the answer is no.”

 

He likes to win, you tell yourself, following him inside the mansion. He can’t deal with rejection. That’s all this is. One million dollar attempt to prove that Brian Kinney can have anything he wants. This is not real. You see yourself laying beside the pool. You imagine making love on the floor of the stable, with your horses peering curiously from their stalls. You think of the hay poking into your ass, but it’s not a sufficient deterrent to the daydream.

Your mind could accurately be described as blown. Brian bought a mansion for you. You tell yourself it is a stunt. You tell yourself he hasn’t signed the papers yet. You touch the walls as he begins his sales pitch, his illogic as to why you should ignore everything he has ever said in the past. You think, maybe he has a point. Brian never does anything halfway. Maybe he’s changed. You know you’re an idiot. Brian can sell anything, but he’s always been his own best product. You consider running before you do anything stupid. You are a mature adult, you should be able to handle this. Listen politely, say no, and go home. Your adult plan is demolished when he lays himself bare, suddenly, abandoning pretense, abandoning argument, advancing on you naked and afraid. “I would be anything,” he says and you can’t block those words, you can’t turn them aside. You know Brian too well. but you don’t know this, you aren’t prepared for his eyes to open into his soul. You try, you fight, you declare him unbelievable, and he simply smiles and agrees with you. The smile kills you. When he calls you his prince, that kills you too. When he says he is taking a chance on love, and his lips quirk. and you want to tackle him to the floor and take those lips into your being, you want to absorb them and make them your own. It is too much, he has overwhelmed your defenses. The house, and the news about the loft, and the way his voice cracks when he says anything, all these things are too much for you. The warmth of the morning creeps over your stomach. You have a strange but strong desire to pummel him with your fists, to scream. You also want to kiss him, and draw him slowly down to the floor and invite him inside your body, invite him to take up residence. You can no longer deny the seriousness of his intentions. You can no longer deny him, or yourself.

You stare, the two of you, measuring each other. You want assurance, safety, but these are unavailable to you. All you have is the fireplace, and the wood floors, and his dark eyes staring steadily back. Unflinching. He is not running from this, you are. In truth, both of you have been running toward it for years, since you looked up from your fear and your hope and saw him watching you. A different man then, but you loved him and you love him still. You are a different man too. You were brave enough then to go with him, and to love him despite everything. Are you brave enough for this? He took a chance on love, he says, and smiles. You say, “Okay,” and take a chance too. You believe.


End file.
